1 minute max per topic—no outright lies although often bordering on truthiness. Verdicts provided by the audience, based on who could shout loudest from a choice [ranking].

Of course, Harrydoes comment that the comparison is a bit unfair (server versus client side), but there are alternatives for both (client-side PHP and server-side Javascript) so make a foundation for enough of a comparison. At the end of the night, though, the results of the votes were conclusive - Javascript was in worse shape than PHP, though the winner was "he one that came out hurting less".